


Herz aus Stein

by rextexx



Series: Loving you is really hard [4]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Alternative Universe - Cryptics, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Cryptic! Robbie, Graphic description of deformed limbs, Huldufólk! Sportacus, Icelandic & Scottish Folklore, Love Is The Answer tropes, M/M, Terato, drawings included
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rextexx/pseuds/rextexx
Summary: 'This is my town, elf. You do not belong here.' said the monster, his breath sickly sweet. 'You should have left when you had the chance.''I don't want to leave.' Sportacus said. 'This is my home too.'





	1. In the land of Gods and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since the terribly sad news came to me about Stefan Karl's current situation, I haven't felt the same about writing or drawing anything for the Lazytown fandom. Though I did eventually collect myself and decided to write something again, especially since Cryptic!AUS are super hot rn.
> 
> This story was inspired by a comic on tumblr, about a ghost and a monster living in a house together I saw about a year ago. I cannot seem to find the link to the story, but I will add it eventually once I find it again. This story is also inspired by Beauty and the Beast and several other Disney and/or Ghibli movies.

 Álfurs were the hidden people. Usually spirits, wandering through the hills and mountains, crossing humans only on the rarest occasions. Sometimes, however, when Álfur's knew their services were needed, where men's powers couldn't suffice and not even the gods themselves could hear the prayers and calls for help, it were the elves' job to take over.  
  
Sportacus was not the most usual elf you would find napping on a dandelion, or picking mushrooms by midnight. Sportacus was too tall to sit on flowers, and mushrooms were not necessarily his number one in his diet.  
  
Sportacus was something you and I might refer to as a superhero. If you could call him that, at all. He probably would like to be referred to as just slightly-above-average. Or at least, he would, in the near future.

 

* * *

  
Sportacus felt that he was needed. Splitting himself from his tribe and his family, like every young Álfur did, he started his journey through the ever-green nature of his homeland. He traveled long and far, mostly by foot, sometimes, he would use his fathers hot air balloon, just to cross over mountains, or lakes too far to circle around.

  
And while he wandered, he mused It had been a while since a human town had called for the aid of the elves. In fact, the last time, it had been during the time Íþróttaálfurinn, his father, had been his age. This was more than one hundred years ago. Humans don't always know that they do need help, Sportacus told himself.

Sometimes they ask for help, and sometimes, they don't, and still elves were called. He supposed this was one of the incidents where they didn't know yet that they were in trouble, and that only an Álfur like himself could solve. He was determined to help.

He was determined, even though he gambled with the possibility to be shunned, or expelled. Not everyone was friendly towards the magical world and its inhabitants. Alot of the creatures out there could give even an elf quite a scare – they were taller than humans, scarier, dangerous.

Even though their intentions were good, their size and appearance could easily spook a human – and fear was men's strongest, and most hazardous emotion. It's always been easier for the hidden folk, for they stayed in the background.  
Human didn't see them. At least not those that did not want to believe in them.

Sportacus could live with this possibility, he was just an man that wanted to help, and not receive any sort of glory or rewards for his actions. All he wanted was peace, happiness, a healthy life, one he might be able to pass onto the human offspring's too.

And apples. Apples were his fuel and his elixir vitae. He did wonder if the humans liked apples too. If they had apple trees in their village. Perhaps, if he did his work well, the villagers might bring him some to his doorstep, as a thanks for his good work.  
  
They did when Íþróttaálfurinn had been around, at least. He had told him so much about this little town, called Latibaer. About the citizens. About how the people had reacted once they realized there was an Álfur among them. In fact, his father had been the first courageous one from the hidden folks that dared to show himself to the humans. He didn't hide, didn't do his work behind the people's back. He had been there, open and vulnerable. He had never witnessed the humans most terrifying emotions. Fear.

Hate. Or Jealousy.  
He did witness another terrible trait however.  
  
Greed.  
  
Back in his old, glorious days, he was called a superhero. Sportacus had done lots of research as to what a superhero was, and what it takes to become one. One thing he noticed, every research had in common – a superhero always came along with a villain.  
Glanni Glaepur had been a villain. He had not been entirely human either, nor entirely or the magical kind. When he asked his father, Íþróttaálfurinn hesitated for a long time to even tell him more than his name. It took lots of probing to get him to talk.  
  
“Let's just say, son”, the older elf said, as he heaved a deep sigh. “He is not a threat to the people anymore. He never had been one of them to begin with.”

  
  
  
The mountains grew flatter with each mile he wandered. Glaciers and roaring waterfalls were replaced with large meadows, hills with thin streaks of trees growing along the trails. The ringing bells of cattle echoed across the fields. This surely was human territory. The sun was setting quickly. The sun was slowly disappearing behind the knolls, and the sky darkened.  
  
In the slowly creeping darkness, Sportacus spotted a signpost. East – Busycity. West – Lazytown. He believed the call for help was coming from one of the larger cities, Busycity was full of people that weren't able to stay out of trouble sometimes, the poor people there had their herds in the clouds with so much work to do. However, Sportacus saw the candle standing beneath the signpost. It wasn't just one candle, but many along the small dirt trail that lead to the West.  
  
Those were candles that showed the hidden people the way to home.  
  
_Home.  
  
_ “This is my new home then...” Sportacus whispered to himself, thrilled, and excited to see what this strange village with the even stranger name had to offer.  
  
Lazytown was truly living up to his name. The moment Sportacus arrived, he was greeted with yawning void. The streets were empty. Most of the houses appeared to be very empty too. He looked at the sky, and saw no birds flying above the trees. The only thing that placed a perfect illusion of harmony in this town was the clear evening sky, with pink clouds like candy cotton sweeping past the horizon.  
  
For a while, Sportacus wandered around the town, inspecting the area. He felt alot of caged energy in this place, so he knew he was not entirely alone.  
  
He knew there were children around. He absentmindedly kicked the abandoned soccer ball that lied among a bunch of other toys. On the floor were unwrapped candy paper, popsicle sticks, and the scent of sugar filled the air like a thick, nauseating plume of smoke.  
  
Sportacus frowned, and looked around. Where were the children? He knew these traces were very recently left there. Wandering around town, unashamedly staring through the windows into some of the houses, he found most of them abandoned. He did come across a few that still had light burning, and filled with furniture.  
  
"Oh Milfooord~" A voice rang through one of the edifices and Sportacus' ears twitched. "Milford, my dear, I would need your assistance."  
  
Sportacus eyes fixed onto a small, curvy yellow house with a red roof. He noticed a small man, dressed in a mustard-yellow jacket and suspenders, completely out of breath since he just came clattering down the staircase. "Y-Yes, Miss Busybody?" He panted.  
  
"Milford, I still need someone to put my laundry up to dry. And someone needs to chop wood for the chimney tonight."  
  
The man paled a little. "M-Miss Busybody, don't you think it's a little warm to make a fire? It's mid July."  
  
"Milford, you know I can't discuss with you when I just got my nails done. Now, shoo, my dear, time's running~"  
  
Sportacus' other ear flinched at her chanting voice. The man gave a low sigh, muttered an affirmative to the lady with the blue hair, and tumbled outside the house into a garden. At least, that's probably what came closest to a garden. There were fences, and the ground was soft and watered. There were no flowers though. Not even the trace of any life inside the soil. Sportacus approached, and leaned onto the wooden fence.  
  
He knew the man couldn't see him. Adults usually didn't. They weren't that receivable to the supernatural as much as children were.  
  
He watched him, muttering to himself pitifully as he started hanging up dress shirts, socks and jackets to dry. Sportacus frowned. A man of his age should probably not be stressing himself that much, he figured. Then, he glanced to the name tag on the doorbell. "Milford Meanswell. Mayor of Lazytown."  
  
This guy was the mayor? Sportacus blinked. Then why was he doing this, instead of caring for the town? Clearly, it was in need of some adjustments.  
Instead, the poor man turned, and grabbed a very huge ax, one that definitely looked too heavy and too sharp for him, and he clumsily started chopping down on logs of wood. It took him a considerable time to split them apart at all, and he was sweating profoundly and pausing every few seconds.  
  
“Mister Mayor, you really shouldn't – ah. Nevermind.” Sportacus muttered. “ I suppose you don't hear me at all.”  
  
Sportacus sighed a melancholy sigh as he moved away from the fence, and walked down the street. He wish he could help. But he was not allowed to intervene. Not yet, at least. This town was extremely rural, and tiny. People weren't used to the sight of magic. How could they possibly react once Sportacus showed himself to them, with his short appearance, and his wiry mustache and his long pointy ears?  
  
He heard the worst stories of Álfurs who were sighted by people that didn't respect them. They were caught, and tied up, and their ears would be cut off to sell them.  
  
While he walked, terrible fantasies of these two nice, friendly people holding him down while painfully stealing his ears, he stopped. Just behind the mayors pitiful excuse for a garden, he spotted a strange construction in the distance. From afar, he wouldn't have noticed it most certainly. To the human eye, it appeared just like another section of the town with a pompous house on the top of a hill, with dark firs growing into a dense forest.  
  
A herd of purple cows gathered around the nicely cut, green lawn. But the longer Sportacus looked, the clearer he saw it. This wasn't a house. And the lawn and the cows weren't real either. It was but a realistic drawing of a landscape, strapped on a billboard.  
  
Sportacus felt his hands getting a little clammy. He couldn't pinpoint why – but this felt suspicious. It was certainly coated with magic, of some sort, but not a sort of magic that Sportacus had ever seen. It wasn't bad magic, he decided after a while. Evil magic would leave a much much bigger impression on its surroundings. Dead plants and dried grass, for example, any living creature that came close would grow sick and die.  
  
Sportacus supposed it was just a small sort of pixie, maybe a goblin. He could easily expel them and get rid of the problem. But right now, he had a much more important task.

It was a marine blue house standing in the center of the market place where Sportacus found the rest of Lazytowns citizens, at last. It were four children, sitting on a couch, eyes fixated on a flashing TV screen. Two of them held strange looking things in their hands, on which they pressed with their thumbs in rapid motion.  
  
They were still young. Human children were taller than Álfur-children by nature, but if Sportacus would guess, he supposed the youngest was not older than four, maybe five. In his hand he was holding – and Sportacus audibly gasped in horror – a bag of chips.  
  
"It's my turn to play now!" growled other child, with short brown hair and a snobbish expression on his face, as he snatched for the controller.  
  
"Stingy, c'mon man, I haven't been playing that long!" The other kid, brown skin and orange dreadlocks, whined.  
  
"You've been playing for five hours straight, Pixel." the only girl in the group with pigtail-hair growled.  
  
"Right! And it's _mine_ anyway!" The boy called 'Stingy' snapped.  
  
"Hey, how about you two fist fight and the winner gets the controller !" Pigtail girl enforced, and smirked mischievously at the incoming brawl.  
"Shut up Trixie!" Pixel snarled. "Stingy, stop it!"  
"N-no fights, please!" The youngest whined and scrambled off the couch, but never dropping his bag of chips.  
  
Sportacus leaned away from the window and against the wall. He had seen enough. Children, still young, eating unhealthy, not capable of sharing, playing videogames, and setting people against each other – it was a true nightmare for an elf to witness.  
He took a deep breath, to collect himself. Then, he exhaled slowly. It was worse than he had imagined.  
  
It's way past 8.08pm, and Sportacus could still see the lights inside the blue house flickering. The children weren't in their beds, and the loud noises of videogame echoed all the way up to his balloon. They will be late for school, Sportacus thought. They will be exhausted and unmotivated for the rest of the day.  
  
How will they grow up into reasonable, healthy adults without a good night sleep? How are they going to appreciate everything outside their own four walls, the nature, the trees and hills and grass and fresh air?  
  
Sportacus sighed, and rolled onto his back, arms under his head, as he stared up to the sky. He went over the plan again and again. Go to sleep. Wake up early. Start your task.  
  
In all honesty, Sportacus felt the slightest tinge of disappointment. True, this was his first mission on his very own, and this town had lost its sight on the most important things – the awareness of their surrounding nature, the well-being of the children, and the natural human instinct to move and exercise, instead of sitting inside, staring into a TV set and eating fast food.  
  
But there was something that bothered Sportacus even more. He knew someone, someone in very particular, was sending out these strange, helpless vibes. Someone in this town was calling for his help, so loudly, so persistent. It was a tired call. A sad call. And still loud enough for Sportacus to receive it. It didn't come from the children, he knew that. Not from the Mayor either, or his assistant. But if not them – then _who?  
_  
Was there someone else in this town? Someone he hadn't met yet? He would have to look further. Prepare himself for his new life. And perhaps, any time soon, the whole town would be able to see him.  
  
"I can make this work." he told himself, forcing a smile on his face, which soon grew into a natural chuckle. "I can help these people." He closed his eyes, relaxing. The thought of doing something good, even if it was just a small issue, made Sportacus forget about the bright lights and the loud pesky noises beneath him.

 

  
  
"Guys, where is my soccer ball?"

Trixie was looking all over the vast, sordid sports field. "I swear I left it here."  
  
"My frisbee's missing too." Pixel mumbled.  
  
"And my candy!" Ziggy gasped, dropping his lollipop and began circling the field in a panicky pace. "I left it here, all here! This was all the candy I got for Easter."  
  
"Didn't we leave all of our stuff right here?" Pixel looked over to Trixie. "Yeah, we did!" She agreed.  
  
"Hm. Looks like someone has been on _my_ sports field yesterday," Stingy concluded, "And took all of our stuff!" and he clutched his piggy bank theatrically to his chest.  
  
“But who would just take it? And why?”  
  
“Someone obviously seems to like soccer balls and frisbee's. And candy.”  
  
“Another child perhaps?”  
“Nah, there aren't any other kids around."  
“Yeah, even so – he could at least ask before taking _my_ property away.”  
  
“Guys.” Ziggy tugged on Pixel's sleeve. Everybody stopped, and turned their attention to the smallest. “I-I think it was Robbie.”  
  
The kids threw each other a quizzical gaze. Then, they rolled their eyes in unison.  
  
“Ziggy, we told you already – this 'Robbie' guy isn't real.”  
“Yes! He is real!” Ziggy whined. “He loves candies, and cake and he likes watching TV, and he hates sports. Also I saw him. Just yesterday.”  
  
“Oh yeah, of course you did.” Trixie pushed her fists into her sides. “Did you see him take all our _crap_ and carry it away, too?”  
“No, I didn't.” Ziggy shook his head. “But I saw him here in town yesterday. He was just walking around, behind this man...”  
  
The children frowned. “A man was here?”  
  
“Yeah! He was at the Mayors house, and the town square.” Ziggy said.  
  
Pixel, Trixie and Stingy paused, and looked at each other, mildly alarmed. Ziggy was still too young to understand that this was not something that should happen very often in a town as small as theirs. They all learned the stranger-danger stories from school. And this felt quite suspicious to them.  
  
“What did he look like? What was he talking about with the mayor?” Pixel asked.  
  
Ziggy pursed his lips. “Hm. He didn't say much actually. He was just watching...”  
  
“We should ask Mister Meanswell! Maybe he knows if that guy took _my_ stuff.” Stingy suggested.  
“Yeah, and when we get that thief, I'll him in the _nuts_ !”  
  
Ziggy gasped. "That's a bad word, Trixie..."  
"I've got a whole lot more of these. "Trixie grinned, and listed up all of her naughty vocabulary to Ziggy's young, vulnerable ears, as they arrived at the Mayors house. The man was pacing around his tiny little garden, a little out of breath. He seemed to be quite in a confused stupor.  
  
"Mister Meanswell?" Pixel knocked at the tiny garden door. "Mister Meanswell."  
The mayor jumped a little and wheeled around. "O-Oh. Hello children."  
  
"Mister Meanswell, all of our toys we left at the sports field are gone, although we left them there yesterday. We are missing a soccer ball, a frisbee and some candy."

"My Easter candy." Ziggy added.  
  
"Right. So, do you know where they are? And who could have taken them?"  
  
"Huh? Oh, oh boy, I'm so sorry, kid. I haven't seen them. But uh..." The mayor seemed a little edgy. "But may I say, I have found something _different_ ."  
  
He stepped aside, revealing a large pile of chopped firewood. All neatly stacked, it was leaning against the wall of the crooked house. The children 'ooh'd in shared awe.  
"Yes, a-and here! The laundry is all hung up and dried. I-I didn't leave them like this, for sure. And here!" The mayor pointed at the ground beneath. Tiny green sprouts craned their delicate necks through the soil. "My garden is slowly blooming again. I don't kn-know _how_ , but...but all of this -" he spun around slowly. "All this happened overnight."  
  
"Oh Milfoord~" Miss Busybody cooed, carrying two large cups of coffee in her hands. “There you go, one big cup, freshly brewed. I am very proud of your work, my dear.”  
  
“I-I didn't—“ he wanted to protest, but the mug was already pushed into his hands and bright pink lipstick lips were pressed against his cheek. Whatever the poor man wanted to say, he was muted.  
  
“Hm.” Pixel rubbed his chin. “Ziggy, didn't you say you saw a man here at the Mayors house?”  
Ziggy nodded. Miss Busybody arched a brow. “A man was here?”  
“Yeah, but apparently only Ziggy saw him.” Trixie crossed her arms. “He always makes up people he sees around town when there aren't.”

“But I did!” Ziggy whined. “He was standing here, and was watching you, Mister Meanswell.” Ziggy hopped to the fence.  
“Oh, uh. Really?” The mayor blinked. “I don't think I've noticed him...”  
  
“He didn't really say something, actually.” Ziggy. “He just said something like, 'you shouldn't,' and 'nevermind, I suppose you don't hear me at all'.”  
  
The Mayor spat out the sip of coffee he just had taken, all over the freshly washed night gown of his assistant hanging from the clothe line. “W-What?” he stammered.  
  
“He said you wouldn't hear him.” Ziggy repeated.  
  
The mayor's face fell. “Th-That is - But -- C-Could it be...? That means...” he muttered.  
“Means what?” Stingy, Pixel, Trixie, Ziggy and Miss Busybody asked in unison.  
  
“B-But. But this can't be. I-I thought they are extinct. It's been _decades_ since...”  
  
“Come on, old man, tell us!” Trixie jumped on the spot. _“Tell us, Tell us!”  
_  
The Mayor slowly lowered his cup back onto its tray, and inhaled deeply. “I may be terribly wrong, bit - This means we might, or might not, have an Álfur in our town.”  
“ _Wow!_ An Álfur!!” the children cheered ; then, their voices died down. “Eh - what is an Álfur?”  
  
“Oh, Milford.” Miss Busybody shook her head. “Please, this all has a logical and mature explanation, there is no need to spoil the children's minds with rural superstitions.”  
“Those aren't just superstitions.” He defended. “I know it! My uncle has seen one!”  
  
Miss Busybody rolled her eyes with a sharp sigh. But the children stared in curiosity. “He has seen one of them?”  
  
“Oh yes! You see, my uncle was a police officer, a long time ago. Back then, an Álfur has visited the city he lived in. You see, Álfur's are elves, good elves, that used to help the humans if they were called. They were in desperate need of someone who would be able to stop a criminal mastermind that tried taking over a whole city. And he did! He stopped him! His name was Íþróttaálfurinn, but he always wanted them to refer to him simply as Number Nine. He was practically something you all would call a superhero.”  
  
“A boisterous, attention-driven _bum,_ that's what he was.” Miss Busybody wrinkled her nose. “With a _terrible_ sense of fashion, too!”  
  
The Mayor shot her a rather sour gaze. She was from the bigger cities. She wouldn't know. But he said the truth.  
  
“But – if your uncle was able to see him,” Pixel said. “Why doesn't he show himself to all of us?”  
The mayor showed a bitter smile. “Álfur's are hidden people, my child. They are afraid of humans, only show themselves to people who true believe in them, and work behind our backs.”  
  
Ziggy flinched and wheeled around, expecting to see someone right behind him, but found nothing.  
  
“Íþróttaálfurinn had always been an exception, for some reason...” The Mayor scratched his chin thoughtfully, then looked to Ziggy. “And you have been able to see him?”  
  
Ziggy nodded. “My mom always tells me stories about Álfurs, and that they keep us save. We always light a candle on New years eve, so they can find their way into Lazytown. And now, one did!”  
Although Ziggy and the Mayor shared a happy demeanor, the kids, and Miss Busybody looked skeptical.  
  
“Then maybe,” Stingy took a look around the perimeter. “ He was the one who took all of our stuff!”  
“Do Álfurs steal things too?” asked.  
“W-Well, uh, no but --” The Mayor stammered.  
  
“Guys, look!” Trixie called out, and pointed at the bench close to a group of shrubbery. She quickly scooted over, knelt down, and to everyone's surprise, she found her rubber ball. “It was here, right under the bench all along!”  
  
“Hey, and there is my Frisbee!” Pixel exclaimed, running towards an old oak tree across the sports field. The Frisbee was stuck on a branch, high enough so Pixel would have to climb,but low enough to avoid any injuries in case he fell. Ziggy in the meanwhile, found a whole trail of his candies, leading around the park, for him to follow and collect.  
  
“Puh, seems like everyone is getting their stuff back,” Stingy crossed his arms as he moved to the sports field. “But what about me, huh? I didn't loose _anything!_ But I still wanna _get_ something at least!”  
  
Following Trixie's gaze as she ran to the sports field, he let out a sudden gasp. There, on the wall that separated the park from the sports field, he spotted a videogame controller, with a ribbon wrapped around the casing. In a pretty handwriting, the name tag said: 'Property of Stingy. So he won't be fighting with his friends over the controllers anymore.'  
  
“Oh my gosh, hold me.” Stingy whispered, and slumped against Trixie. “Trixie hold, me, hold me right now it has my name on it, and it's _mine,_ Trixie I'm gonna _faint!_ ”  
  
Sportacus' lips twitched into a smile. Leaning against the trunk of a tree from the other side of the sports field, he watched the people of Lazytown.  
  
Though he knew he shouldn't be reinforcing lazy and unhealthy behavior, like the candy, and videogame controller – but he knew, taking it away from them would do no good.  
  
These humans needed change, but they needed it slowly. It was the same with Hidden people - Change their environment within only moments, and they would scatter into chaos. Let them adjust to new adjustments, a new tree growing in their realm, slow rain before a storm, the soft transition from winter to spring.  
  
Maybe, he thought, humans and álfurs weren't all that different after all.  
  
Ziggy picked up a wrapped chocolate bar that was precisely placed in a circle around the stone fence. He looked up, stared at Sportacus with such preciseness, instead of looking through him like the rest. Sportacus felt an excited tingle in his spine.

“Did you help the Mayor with his garden and the laundry? And the firewood?” he asked.  
Sportacus couldn't help but smile. He nodded.  
“Did you also hide our stuff?”  
Sportacus nodded again, with a soft shrug of his shoulders.

  
Ziggy clasped the chocolate bar in his small chubby hands, and eyed the man. Luckily, the rest of the group was preoccupied with their own businesses to notice their youngest was talking to a stranger, one only he could see.  
The boy blinked suddenly. “Are you a superhero?” he asked.  
  
Sportacus looked down himself. He was dressed in blue, with a short-sleeved, sky blue shirt and white and black stripes along the sides. His pants fit precisely to the small transition into marine blue along his hips and down his thigh. He looked much different than anything the children, or adults wore.  
  
The difference between the children and him however was, that his attire was perfectly fitting him, and stretched with each fast, sudden, extravagant movement the sporty man would do. It would never rip. There was also the fact that his attire kept off any harm, thanks to several protection spells. So yes - he might have looked like something straight out of a comic book.  
  
He chuckled softly, and ran a hand over his neck. “Well, no.” He said. The boy's face fell into a tinge of disappointment, so Sportacus quickly added. “But you could say I'm an above-average-hero, if anything.”  
  
The boy stared back at him for a while, nodded then, but seemed to be happy with this explanation. “I've never seen a real hero before.” He said, beady eyes sparkling with child-like excitement. He waddled closer, and held up his candy to the man.  
“Oh? For me?” he asked, and Ziggy nodded. Candy was poison for him. The kid could obviously not know that, and not accepting a children's gift was considered the rudest form of denial in his clan. So, he took the chocolate bar with a thankful smile.  
  
“What's your name?” he asked the boy. "My name is Sportacus."  
  
Out of nowhere, his face had completely changed. Rapidly. The smile on the boy's face was replaced with a look of shock and surprise. He backed away, slowly, dropping the chocolate bar. Sportacus frowned. “Is everything alright?” he asked, but the boy wasn't even looking at him.   
  
“No, Robbie. Don't hurt him.” He whispered.  
“Robbie?” Sportacus asked. “Who is Robbie?”  
  
Instead of an answer, the boy turned around suddenly, and ran off, back to the group of children. He seemed positively spooked by...something. Sportacus stared after him, and then turned.  
  
An ice cold shock ran down his back. His very spine froze, immobilizing him.  
  
A few inches away from his own nose was a face.  
  
Though, calling it a face was a little bit of a glorification. For a face required a nose. A mouth. Eyes, and brows. Or, emotions for that matter. What he saw, however, left no indication that what he was staring into was anything close to human.  
  
This creature standing there was tall. Too tall for a human.  
  
The body was long and stretched and lanky, limbs too tall to be visually comfortable. Shoulders slumped, the torso was stretched into a bow, its spine sticking out sharply. It would have looked concerning and perhaps a little abject. But not with the size of the creature. Now, it just looked menacing. Menacing, and _wrong._  
  
The most 'wrong' about him was the fact that there, where his feet should touch the floor, was nothing. The thing was hovering. Hovering without any strings or attachment to any object or construct that would have left the impression of flying. It didn't even have wings, for that matter. Instead of shoes, or feet, there were paws, scaled, gray, cold and dry like stones.  
  
It had one eye that was just as equally cold and gray, with no pupil, staring back at him. The rest of its face was wrapped tightly in old, worn out bandages. Sportacus lips parted, in a silent scream, but before he could even so make a sound, that enormous claw suddenly wrapped around his mouth, silencing him.

Sportacus struggled shortly, tearing at the paw to let go of him, but he was yanked away, off his feet. He was spun around, his back pressed into the monstrosity's chest, and it felt equal to being pushed naked into a cold stony wall.  
  
He felt the monster's breath run through the fabric down his neck. It was a disgusting, rattling noise, each breath sounding like a metal pipe was stuck in its throat. Slowly, he watched the beasts other, massive hand raise. It pointed at the children. A sudden, numbing feeling of realization shook the Álfur in his very foundations.  
  
Before he could do anything at all, the hand made a swift swiping motions – the neatly stacked firewood in the mayors garden collapsed, tumbled in all directions. Logs broke through windowpanes, landed in the soil and buried the sprouts beneath their weight. The children and adults froze in shock, and wheeled around.  
  
The monster flicked a long sharp claw. The clothe line snapped with a loud **_zzwang_** , and clothespins were launched through the air like bullets. Miss Busybody let out a startled high-pitched scream, ducked, and the pins zoomed deep into the concrete wall behind her. One unfortunately had buried itself through the lady's azure blue hair and left a gaping swath. Clothes fluttered in the air, and were carried away by a soft breeze.  
  
“My garden!” The mayor gasped.  
“My laundry!!” Miss Busybody cried out, and ran after her pink nightgown. “Come baaack!”  
  
Sportacus flinched at the scene before his eyes. He made a move, an attempt to free himself. But the claw around his mouth slipped down, until the pointed edges of claws lingered on top of his neck. One move, and Sportacus' throat would be sliced. Helplessly, Sportacus watched as all his hard work was foiled, before his very eyes.  
  
Left was a group of startled children, a sweating, equally startled Mayor, and a desperate lady with a ruined haircut chasing after her clothes. Ziggy cried. He clung to Stingy and Trixie, who desperately tried to calm him down.  
A feeling of dread filled Sportacus. Only enhanced, as the rattling respiration of the creature brushed the base of his pointed ear again. His breath smelled sickly sugary.

 

 

  
“This is _my_ town _._ ” the voice growled. “You do not belong here, _elf_.”

 

  
Sharp talons scraped along the thin skin of his neck. "Wh-Why did y --?" Sportacus pressed out. He stopped the moment he felt the claw pierce through his skin with a burning sensation, and warm blood running in a small stream down his neck. _His_ blood.  
  
“Don't fix what isn't broken.” The monster answered. “We do not need a flippedy-floppedy, good-for-nothing, warmhearted quack like yourself here.”  
  
And with that, the hand slowly retracted from his neck. It felt like he was robbed of air, and now positively gasped for it like a fish back in the water. He rubbed at his neck. It was burning with how hard this stony claw had clenched around it. He wheeled around, ready to fight of whatever terrible beast he was. But he was gone. Like he never existed, he was practically erased from the scenery.  
  
Suddenly, the chocolate bar he had still held in his hand, was snapped from his fingers. He spun. The monster had appeared, practically out of nowhere, and began examining the candy bar.  
  
“Peanutbutter nougat mousse.” it read from the wrapping.  
  
The monster chuckled, and it sounded absolutely evil. And without another word, Sportacus watched as the creature hovered across the sports field, crossing the mayors garden ( knocking over a pot of flowers in the process) and vanished behind some shrubbery.

 


	2. Living in the garden of Evil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I picked up on this story after I finished my drivers test. Hope I can continue this one to the end.

The nights were cold. Sportacus leaned against the basket walls of his father's hot air balloon, wrapped in two layers of covers.  
  
Hidden folks weren't usually tending to become cold, but he knew this freezing winds weren't naturally.  
He had about a idea who was casting wind spells this late at night.  
  
It's been two days since Sportacus had helped the people in Lazytown. He had done what he was taught to do, help the people, urged them, at least a little bit, to move around to find their possessions back, and believed he had set a good start for his upcoming work.

  
Until he had met him.

  
Sportacus didn't know what it was. Or who it was. If it really had a name, or a term. He knew it was magical, like him. And that like him, he was unseen by the human eye. Except one.

The boy who had handed him a chocolate bar the other day, had seen him too. He had called it a name. Robbie, wasn't it? It was a strange name for something so evil. Evil creatures usually had names that weren't human. Ancient names that were the worst possible words not even the human language could translate.  
  
  
He knew for sure that Robbie was an evil spirit.  
  
  
He raked his mind over what sort of evil he was, though. Not something Sportacus had ever seen, or heard of, that was for sure.  
  
He liked candy, apparently. And he liked causing troubles. He could be a goblin perhaps. Or a Gargoyle. The feet and hands came very close to that of a stone demon. But that didn't explain the hovering. Nor why this... _thing_...had wrapped its head in bandages.  
  
Evil creatures didn't have injuries that stayed long enough to wrap them up. And if it was for the sole reason of hiding itself?  
  
They didn't care if they were ugly or terrible to look at, monster simply didn't _care_ how terrifying their appearance was, for that's usually what they were proud of the most.  
  
He knew one thing for sure however, and that was that Robbie apparently found joy in the misery's of others.

 

 

  
“You do not belong here, _elf_.”

 

 

  
Sportacus' fist clenched. If this creature was in any way connected to the realm of mystical creatures, he was fully aware that this word was the most hurtful insult directed towards the Hidden Folk that was ever invented. The word Álfur was a sacred and ancient word, for a folk just as ancient as time itself. Translating their names into human was a contempt of their entire culture. He could forgive a human, for it was easier for them to spell it out. But another creature of magic, fully aware how offending it was to use that word?  
  
Sportacus wondered, if his father had heard this word coming from the beast, if he would have killed it. He had the strength and courage to go against even the tallest creatures. But Sportacus was not his father. He wished he was, in some aspects. Because then he wouldn't sit at the bottom of the hot air balloon and suppress the anger and frustration he felt.

* * *

The next morning, Sportacus was doing handstands, push-ups and stretches, as he overheard the conversation of the children who all gathered at the almost completely untouched sportsfield.

“Ziggy for the last time!” The pigtail girl yelled. “It was just an accident!”  
  
“It wasn't an accident!” Ziggy's voice, equally loud, yelled back. “I saw him! I saw him with the Álfur!”  
  
“Ziggy you're full of bs.” Trixie crossed her arms. “The mayor said there was probably a squirrel that snapped the laundry line, or a pigeon.”  
  
“No, it wasn't a squirrel!” Ziggy stomped his feet on the ground. “It was Robbie!”  
  
  
Sportacus paused his stretches, staying frozen in a split on the floor with his hands holding onto his sole. He kept listening closely.  
  
  
“Oh yes, of course. Well, if Robbie exists, why didn't that Álfur guy warn us about him?”  
  
“Yeah.” Stingy put his fists into his sides. “How do we know it wasn't that Álfur himself who destroyed his own work, just to taunt us?”  
  
Ziggy looked absolutely buffled. “N-no! He would never do that! He is an above-average-superhero, he wouldn't want to hurt us!”  
  
“Above-average-hero? What is that even supposed to mean?” Stingy squinted at him warily.  
  
“He told me! The Álfur. He said he is an above average hero.”  
  
The children looked at each other. They gladly dismissed the idea of 'Robbie' not being real. But they could not argue with the fact that Ziggy was indeed able to see the Álfur. Pixel was the first to approach.  
  
  
“Ziggy? How, uhm. How does this Robbie guy look like?”  
  
  
Stingy and Trixie threw him a glance that spewed the word 'You gotta be kidding'.  
But Ziggy beamed. “He's, He's, uh –“ He practically stumbled over his words in excitement, to finally, _finally_ have an audience. “He's tall. Veeery tall! And, and, and he looks always very angry.”  
  
Sportacus couldn't help but smile. Yes, that was a fitting description. He made a couple of backflips and landed at a light post, a few feet away from the group of children.  
  
“He also likes being lazy. And he threatens to haunt me and turn my hair into centipedes that will crawl into my ear and lay eggs in my brain if I don't give him my candy.” he said, covering his ears.  
  
“Ew!” Stingy blurted.  
“Cool!” Trixie added.  
  
Pixel frowned. Sportacus could feel the boy was feeling bad for not believing the youngest all along, when he was probably spooking the poor kid.  
  
“But it's fine!” Ziggy said, and smiled at Pixel. “Because we have a hero now who will defeat Robbie and drive him out of town!”  
  
Ziggy jumped with excitement, chanting “ _For-ever, for-ever!_ ” over and over again. The other kids shrugged, and then decided to hang out at pixels place for the afternoon. Sportacus watched as they passed him, without hindering them. He knew this day as nice, and bright and it was way too early for the children to be staying inside all day, playing videogames. On the other hand, he decided, he could use the time when nobody watched to continue his work around town.  
  
He started with collecting the logs from the Mayors garden, stacking them neatly so they wont fall down again. The garden was left in a mess after the last magical assault, so Sportacus began digging through the soil with a shovel.  
  
He replanted the seeds in the soft, watered soil, and knelt down, a hand hovering above the ground. He closed his eyes, concentrated. Slowly, a green stem broke through the soil, unfolding two puerile, bright green leaves. Sportacus smiled.  
  
“I hope you'll grow bigger soon, little one.” he whispered to the sprout. Accompanied by the loud, pesky noises of the children playing videogames, Sportacus was picking fruits from the trees. Nobody in town was tall enough to reach them, so he alone had the pleasure of plucking apples, cherries, pears, but also lots of berries, strawberries and raspberries.  
  
  
“Dude, what happened to your moms cherry tree?” Trixie muttered as he looked outside the window and into Pixels garden. “Wasn't it literally filled with cherries yesterday?”  
  
“Huh?” Pixel pressed the pause button and stared outside. She was right. The tree was plucked empty.  
  
“Guys, check this out.” Ziggy called. He held a large bowl, full of apples, pears, and, of course, cherries. “What the – where did you get those from?” Pixel frowned.  
  
“It was standing on the window sill.” Ziggy said and happily munched on some strawberries. "I never had these before. They taste amazing!"  
  
  
Sportacus smiled, and quickly sneaked off again, this time trying to think of a way to get the children more interested in sports. An idea sparked in his mind. He should clean the sportsfield.  
  
The sportsfield had looked very abandoned, the moment he had arrived. There were still old, dead leave hanging around from last fall, moss and grass growing in the corners, the gummy split. The floor was slippery, the nets around the goals had holes. It was evident that it had not been used in quite a while.  
  
While he busied himself, picking leaves and fixing the nets, he couldn't help but feel wary of his surroundings.  
  
The beast from yesterday, Robbie – it had stayed hidden up until now. However, as much as it believed it could stay gracefully obscured among the humans, he still left its traces. The large hole in the net was obviously not done by any soccer balls that were kicked too hard. He held the net up, and quickly noticed they were cut. With something sharp that sliced through the plastic fibers with ease. A knife perhaps. Or claws.  
  
Three fisures, nothing that came close to any animals he had ever seen, lined down the mossy trail, and ended, with deep clawmarks on the wall. He followed them until he reached the broken basketball hoop. It wasn't just broken, it was positively bend.  
  
Bend and mangled like an old soda can, impossible to ever get a ball through ever again. Sportacus hadn't had to guess who had done this. He simply didn't know why. Why was this beast so obsessed with causing misery to other people? Ruining the adults properties, scaring and robbing children, keeping them away from any physical activity.  
  
  
_“Don't try to fix what isn't broken.”  
  
_  
The words left a bitter taste on Sportacus' tongue. It was wrong. He was called here, and he was called here for a good reason. This wasn't only just a town that needed to regain its balance again anymore. This was becoming something bigger for him.  
  
The sports field was done, tidied up and ready for use, around the late afternoon. Trixie was the first to notice it, before calling her friends over to examine the changes together.  
  
“Man, this old dump has never looked so great!” Pixel stemmed his fists into his sides. “Holy – is that a basketball net?”

“It has new stripes too!” Ziggy followed the freshly drawn lines on the floor.  
  
“Guys, we should totally play some soccer.”Stingy suggested then. “The net is fixed, we can finally make actual scores!”  
  
“No, lets play basketball! I've never played basketball before!”  
  
“Yes, basketball!” Ziggy agreed.  
  
“Fine then! But _I_ decide who makes the first goal!”  
  
  
Sportacus smiled, as he watched from the fence. It was a start, he told himself. A good start. They didn't reject the healthy snacks he had placed on their sills. If he had seen correctly, the youngest even completely forgot to finish his lollipop in favor of eating cherries. And fixing the sports field was urging them outside into the sun, in the fresh air. He could perhaps, ultimately, change this city for good, if he kept to it.  
  
“Look at me, I am the greatest superhero of them all!” Ziggy yelled, and his self-made cape fluttered behind him. He was quite agile for his five year old, rather chubby posture. He slipped easily between the other children's legs towards the goal. “I'm going to defeat the big bad Robbie with my ultimate super skill! Flying basketbaaall!”  
  
Ziggy threw with all his might – and missed the hoop. “Aww, I missed.” he pouted. Sportacus offered a compassionate smile. He might be a little too young to actually make a goal yet. But he would surely get there, once he had grown a bit. He felt the nagging urge to join them. Play with them, show them how it's done correctly. But alas, all he could do was watch, and hope one day the others will see him too...  
  
  
Sportacus felt a sudden wind blow past his pointed ear. A presence appeared from the shadows.

  
Its claws grabbed for the stony wall, like an owl grabbing a running mouse, but much, much slower, in a terribly abnormal way.  
  
He sat there, like the gargoyle he represented - Ugly, and spiteful, yet somehow majestically in its own way – crouching and slumped over, gawking over the sports field like a hawk.

He is completely still. Sportacus gives the creature a look from the corner of his eyes. Now that it wasn't only inches away from his face, breathing stinking breath down his back, he could take a much better look at it.  
  
It was tall, long. Thin. Awfully thin, like a mangled, starved animal. It had a long neck. Long enough to outstay its welcome on a normal human body. It stretched further, the longer the monster watched.  
  
Something that caught Sportacus' eye was the garment the monster wore. Long pants, reaching from his scaled ankles up to his famished ribcage, with a fitting vest stretching tightly over its chest. Beneath, it wore a dark blue leotard that covered most of its arms, until they increased in size and had split at the seams. It was uncommon for creatures like itself to even wear clothes at all, but this one seemed to be just tailored to him.  
  
A handmade outfit. Even more uncommon.  
  
  
He looked to the partially covered face of the beast, beneath soft strands of jetblack hair, horns protruded through its skull, sharp, twisted. They looked like they had broken off more often than once.  
  
No matter how monstrous the beast appeared, it did seem to have a sense for its appearance. The last bits of black hair that covered his head and the side of his face that was wrapped up were gelled back into a cocky pompadour.  
  
It had a tail too. It was crooked, broken, and naked. Not broken in the way that is purposeful or malicious, but broken as if it was grown with crooked bones.  
  
As if it noticed that it was watched, its body moved, while his neck stayed at the same place. His head gives a sharp movement towards Sportacus.  
It doesn't speak. Just stares.  
  
Sportacus didn't look at it anymore. He tried focusing on the kids playing, instead of focusing on the cold feeling of those stony eyes staring through him.  
It seemed that ignoring him was not motivating the demon to leave him and the children be. He actually slithered closer, and Sportacus felt a vehement urge to move further away. He didn't though.

 

  
  
“Did you abet them to cause such a commotion?” it growled. Its voice was a sonorous tone, beautiful, besides the awful, gravelly scratch in the back of the monsters throat. It had the power of ten men at once.  
  
It moved even closer. It never looked like it actually touched the earth, as if gravity was turned off around the monsters presence, and it was hovering, swimming through the air, its claws hanging onto the wall to not drift away.  
  
“Listen here, you – you Sportadunce. We aren't people of the big cities, like your kind thinks every community needs to be. We are doing fine with tranquility.” The ball comes flying in their direction, and bounces off the wall, mere inches away from the beast. It didn't even flinch.  
  
“And you,” it resumed, slowly, stretching the words. The ball comes flying in their direction again. This time, the monster catches it with one of his paws. “- Are a threat to this tranquility.”  
  
The Álfur turned to the beast. “You were the one threatening the boy to turn his head into insects if he didn't give you his candy.” he said.

Robbie shrugged his bony shoulders. “He's a brat anyway. Besides -” From his pocket, he picked a wrapped piece of lemondrop, unwrapping it and glancing at the yellow comfit. “He has all the good stuff. You cannot imagine how hard it is to get your hands on these little treasures.”  
  
Sportacus face hinted onto a grimace between anger and disgust.  
  
“Hey, where did the ball go?” Trixie called, and the children started searching all around. All, but Ziggy. He looked too afraid to even come close to the stony wall to ask Sportacus for help.  
  
Sportacus turned his attention to the children, and back to the beast next to him – catching it in the process of stuffing the candy beneath the many layers of bandages around its face. He wondered if it even had a mouth to eat. A nose to smell. A second eye to see.  
  
“You should return the ball to them.” Sportacus said. It wasn't a demand. Rather a suggestion, a prompt for the creature to show some humanity. The monster stared at him with its pale eye. It placed a large paw over the ball – claws dug into the plastic, and with a loud 'Pow', it burst underneath its palm.  
  
Sportacus' ears flinched at the noise. “Hey! This wasn't your ball, and the kids were playing with it! Why did you do that?”  
  
Pale, gray eyes narrowed.  
  
“I hate noises.” it hissed.  
The monster slipped from the fence, and carried itself off, as slowly and soundlessly as it had appeared.

 

* * *

  
This rather bothersome bantering kept on for the time to come. Sportacus did his very best to ignore the creature, and concentrate on his task. It was hard, however.

  
Sportacus chopped wood in the Mayors garden, stacking them. Robbie came along, and with a single swig of magic, the tower of firewood collapsed. Sportacus build a small shelter for the firewood to stay dry and in place. The creature tore it apart the next morning.  
  
Not only that, but the new sportsfield was left in an absolute chaos as the children returned the other day. The soccergoals were torn apart once again, large claw marks scattered all over the floor, large branches lying on the ground and blocking most of the space, and the basketball hoops were dented and scratched up.  
  
  
The children were devastated, and blamed the nightly storms that came during late summer. But Ziggy, and Sportacus knew better.

It was hard for the Álfur to keep his calm, harmonic demeanor. Sure, Sportacus didn't mind the challenging work, in fact, he kept himself fit with fixing up the sportsfield, especially whenever he tested it out himself when everybody was still asleep. He liked working, that's what he and his family had always done. But he was absolutely sure, none of his relates had ever had to deal with a demon.  
  
  
He pondered whether he should consult his father about the creature or not. He surely should know what to do, how to deal with beasts of the bad kind, he himself had deal with Glanni after all. From all the stories he had heard about that person, he was very sure that this demon was coming very close to Glanni when it came to being an inconvenience.  
  
'Robbie' was always there. He didn't show himself right away and in sight, like Sportacus did. Robbie hid behind the trees and hovered above the branches, hiding in the treetops, or behind stones. He was a ghost that nobody could see, but Sportacus could feel his very presence.  
  
The creature was following him. Every step he did. He was like a shadow at his heels that Sportacus did not want. Sometimes it would intervene with whatever Sportacus did, but most of the time it stayed still, staring and observing. Sometimes Sportacus could feel it standing beneath his balloon, which he had started to keep in the air during nighttimes.  
  
He knew Robbie was most probably not going to hurt him – but Sportacus did not feel comfortable with having this thing staring at him all night long. In the morning hours, it was always gone. At least until Sportacus began with his task again. It would reappear somewhere and just observe.

At one morning Sportacus was cleaning up the sportsfield from yet another 'stormy night', removing the large branches that certainly looked like they were ripped off with force, instead of a heavy wind. And as he was seeing one tree in particular was very damaged compared to the others, conveniently the tree he had seen the creature sit in, he felt his crystal centered on his chest tingle.  
  
It was a gift from his father as he had left the clan for the first time. Usually indicating trouble, or that someone else was in trouble. It hadn't flashed and vibrated yet, like it was supposed to do when his urgent aid was needed. But he could feel a strange tickle coming from the little gem, whenever he had the creature somewhere near him. He knew it was here, staring.  
  
  
Sportacus looked up and saw the large, tall shadow in the branches. Sportacus stared back – then, with a slightly forced, but naturally looking smile, he waved. “Hi, Robbie.”  
  
  
The thing perked up. It _flinched_ actually. The thin tail protruding from its backside flicked nervously, and its claws dug deep into the bark of the tree. For a good five minutes, the creature didn't move. Nor speak. In fact, it didn't even bother to use magic and make Sportacus slip on a magically enlarged slug, or transformed the tall branches in his arms into snakes, or anything else that could cause Sportacus some sort of misery.  
  
It stared. And then, as Sportacus looked away, and up again, it was gone. It was probably just as baffled about the sort of kindness that Sportacus showed to this beast as much as everyone else would be. But Sportacus wasn't taught to bully, or insult or look at them with disdain, no matter how mean or ugly they are. Kill them with kindness, he was told.  
  
  
And it worked, apparently. He didn't spot 'Robbie' anywhere near the sportsfield until later in the afternoon.  
  
  
He had lured the children close to the large meadow by releasing frogs and butterflies. Ziggy and Trixie practically ran after them and tried to catch them while Stingy absolutely refused to touch either, and Pixel kept reminding them not to get too close to the billboard.  
  
“Oh come on Pixel, are you believing this bullcrap about Robbie hiding in this bunker, too? Do you?” Trixie rolled her eyes.  
  
“I am fairly neutral to that, Trixie.” He retorted. “But even the adults said we should stay away from the abandoned factory, and the woods. It's full of Pixies and werewolves.”  
  
“It's okay, Pixel.” Ziggy said as he picked up an especially fat toad from the floor. “Robbie isn't here right now.” And he stared back at the space where Sportacus was.  
  
He was doing handstands, and stretches. It felt good to be outside limited borders for just a while, and even watching the kids enjoy themselves on the large green meadow, he felt a sort of peace only a warm spring day like this could provide.  
  
“Sportaclown!” A familiar, raspy voice echoed across to him. Sportacus stopped his sit-ups, lying flat on the grass to look up. There was the creature. Hiding behind a very sparse tree, it looked extremely awkward with not an inch of its body being properly obscured.  
  
“Are you _nuts_ ?!” It hissed. “They could see you, standing around in the open like that!”  
  
Sportacus blinked. Then he gave a small chuckle. “I _want_ them to see me.” He explained.“My father never bothered to hide as well, in fact he openly stayed around the humans for a very long while.”  
  
The monster narrowed its eye.  
  
  
“Maybe if they believe hard enough, they might see me as well some times.”  
For a while, there was silence, and Sportacus continued to his situps.

  
“I do not want them to see _me_ though!” The creature's long talons scraped along the tree trunk, the bark splintering off.  
  
“Why not?” he asked.  
  
He never received an answer. Instead, the monster approached suddenly, too fast for its deformed limbs to actually be able to carry him. It was suddenly mere inches away from his face again, glowering menacingly.  
  
“You brought them to my house!” it growled, the stench of sweets mixed with decay shot into Sportacus nose. “The billboard?” Sportacus asked, looking at the construction with the painted mansion and purple cattle. “You live _in_ the billbor – ?”  
  
“ _Under_ the billboard!!” It boomed. “Under the forest, the ground you lie on, the meadows, beneath the _entire_ town!! Every inch of grass you touch and every bit of air you breathe is mine. It belongs to _me. Everything!_ ”  
  
One stormy gray eye gleamed in anger, its claws and talons and spikes and horns much much sharper.  
“Bring them away from here. _Now!_ ”  
  
Sportacus blinked. “Why? They aren't hindering you from getting home, are they?"  
  
“They are being loud! Loud and nosy and they are in my personal space!!”  
  
It breathed heavily, Voice rattling in its throat like sand in a tincan as it wheezed spitefully: “I... _HATE_ ...loud children!”  
  
  
Sportacus sat up. He looked determined. “No.” he said.  
  
  
The monster drew back by an inch. The look on its obscured face was hard to read, but if Sportacus could guess, it was somewhere between wrath – and staggered.  
  
“...What was that?” The monster whispered. His voice was a level of threatening that even Sportacus felt fear for just a moment, before he crossed his arms.  
  
“No.” he repeated. “I am not taking the children away from the meadow. They are having fun, children are loud when they are having a good time. This here is nowhere as bad as having them sit in front of the TV all day, and stuff themselves with junkfood. Let them have their funtimes.”  
  
The beast didn't budge. He stared, wide-eyed, down at the elf. A butterfly came passing by, sitting on one of the monster's horns. That's how still the thing was. Baffled by the fact someone who could see him did not instantly do what he said, afraid it was going to be torn apart by those massive claws at once, the beast was frozen.

“Fine!!” it suddenly blurted out, and turned. “If you won't do it,” it hovered back to the tree. “Then I will.”

  
Sportacus instantly felt a chill run up his spine. This meant trouble. Big trouble.  
“You will not hurt them.” Sportacus blurted out, “Do you hear me? Robbie!!”  
  
But Robbie was nowhere to be spotted. Panic shot into his mind, and pure adrenaline kicked in. He had to show himself. He had to, and protect them from whatever terrible scheme the demon had in mind. But then an even more eery idea came to his mind. What if they became afraid if they saw him? What if they didn't trust him, or didn't believe him?  
  
His eyes darted to the blonde boy in the group.  
  
“Ziggy!” he called. Ziggy perked up instantly and turned to look at the Álfur, a look of confusion on his face.  
“Ziggy take your friends and get out of here, now! Robbie, he is – “  
  
  
“Ice cream! Ice cream, get your free sunday icecream!”  
  
The kids, Sportacus included, whipped their heads to the sudden source of noise. It came from a pastel-pink trailer which seemed to have popped up out of practically nowhere, with a man inside, waving a cone of strawberry icecream.  
  
“Did I just hear ice cream?” Trixie chanted.  
“Did I just hear _free_ ice cream?” Stingy added, and at once everything item and game they carried was dropped, as they all scooted to the ice cream truck. Sportacus warily followed them.  
  
This was...unusual. He was sure this was magic. He could feel it wavering around this cart, but wasn't really sure if he knew if this was in fact good or bad magic. He followed the children to the ice cream truck and took a a look inside.  
  
“Welcome, kids, how may I serve you today?” the man wit the huge black mustache and the apron asked.  
Instantly, the kid started yelling their favorite ice cream flavors, and the man chuckled, softly, a little stiff, maybe a little feigned Sportacus found, but still friendly.  
“Now, now you brats, – eeh, I mean dear children. One at a time, will you?”  
  
Trixie got first in line. “Give me the biggest hugest ball of chocolate you have, fam!” she spread her arms out for emphasis. “Like, _thisss_ big!”

“One big chocolate icecream for the lady it is.” the man smirked and loaded as much ice cream as he could fit on one flimsy ice cream cone as he could. “There you go.” he reached it over to the girl. “Now khh. Next one.”  
  
Sportacus stared at the man with squinting eyes. He wouldn't have to worry about this guy seeing him, he certainly was a little too big to still believe in entities like him. He was just wondering why this mans face was so...familiar. He was very tall, and very dainty. Very pale too, with even paler eyes. He looked a little disheveled, but not completely unkempt either. His black hair was slicked back and trimmed neatly, and kept clean and proper, and so was the rest of his appearance – aside from a very large wound at the side of the mans face.  
  
  
“Do you have Pistachio ice cream?” Stingy asked with his arms crossed and his piggy bank pressed to his chest. “Only the best ice cream shops I've been to have these.”  
  
The ice cream seller gave the boy a strange look. “Who in their right minds eats pistachio flavored ice cr-- mean, uh, uhm,” he seemed to be knocking on something hiding behind the counter. “I mean, yes, of course I do. There we go, a big pistachio ice cream for the fancy young man.”  
  
  
The wound on the mans face stretched from the left side of his face, and over his skull, leaving a good portion of his hairline blank from hair. The man hid it nearly completely under his little hat he wore which matched to the apron around his hips. It was hard to catch for the children probably, as they had their minds on ice cream mostly, but Sportacus noticed it right away. That, and the fact that instead of clean, pink skin, there were...were those horns protruding from the man's head?  
  
  
“He-Hello.” Ziggy peeked over the counter, barely able to reach it, and standing on his toes to see anything. “D-Do you have candy ice cream?”  
“Candy ice cream.” The man echoed, and his shoulders bobbed as he laughed. Yet again, a very feigned and stiff laughter. “Well, lets see here.” he vanished underneath the counter, apparently searching for something, as several pieces of crap flew around the room. As the man reappeared, he had a cone in his hand, with lollipops, sugardrops and chocolate bars sticking out of one single lump of strawberry icecream.  
  
“Would you look at that, I actually _do_ have candy ice cream. My personal favorite ice cream.” Ziggy's eyes lightened up in excitement, while Sportacus' frown deepened.  
  
He didn't like to see the kids absorbing those large amounts of sugar into their bodies, after he was sure he had given them a positive experience with healthy food. Ziggy happily munched on his treat, before he turned towards the Álfur and said: “What ice cream do you want?”  
  
Sportacus flinched, as he knew Ziggy never had openly addressed to him in front of the children. Pixel, Trixie, and Stingy all looked at Ziggy with confusion.  
  
  
“Who are you talking to, Ziggy?”  
“I'm talking to the Álfur.” Ziggy explained. The kids blinked and turned their attention to the free spot next to Ziggy, and then began backing away, scared that their presence was bothering this unseen entity.  
  
“Yes, Sportadunce.” a voice, very familiar, spoke, and Sportacus looked up to see the ice cream man, staring him dead in the eye, with a terribly sly expression on his face - “What ice cream do you want?”  
  
  
And it hit him. Sportacus knew the demon was taunting him. If he started confronting it right now and then, it would only unsettle the children further, and seeing as his good reputation was only slowly growing, he gulped down his anger, and made a decision.  
  
  
He backed away, returning to the spot far away on the meadow, and watched the children finish their treats, and become a little drowsy, settling to calling it a day, and relax at Pixels house for some more rounds of video games.  It hurt Sportacus, to see them give up the little time they had spend outside, and instead went back to old ways.  
  
The creature reappeared behind a tree, and casually hovered above Sportacus.  
  
“You believed I would hurt them, huh?” he snickered. “Don't worry. I don't waste my potentials and magic on hurting these fragile little brats. I think in fact,” Robbie rolled in mid air like a content cat on top of a very comfortable carpet. “I will save this all up for you.”  
  
Sportacus felt bitter anger rise inside him. He closed his eyes, and breathed through.  
  
“Just admit it – you cannot change a thing about this town. You are fighting against windmills here, elf. These children have been this way all their life – why bother now?”  
  
  
Sportacus sat up. For a moment, the beast flinched away, almost awaiting to have crossed the Álfurs lines, and receive a punch in the face. But instead, Sportacus stared off into the distance. And then, he turned. And he smiled.  
  
  
“You're right, Robbie.” he said, and shrugged. “I can't change them. I never could, never can.”  
  
  
The beast cocked its head, as Sportacus continued: “But in fact, I don't want them to change at all. I don't force them to eat healthy, or to do sports everyday, or to keep them outside all day. That's not what we do. We merely show them alternatives. And sometimes, these alternatives are more appealing to the children than their old ways.”  
  
Robbie stared at him blankly.  
  
“So, no. I cannot change them, because I don't want them to change.” Sportacus then drew an apple from his pocket, polished it with the hem of his shirt, and held it into the monster's direction.  
“I'm leaving the choice to them, and them alone.”  
  
“Get this thing outta my face.” Robbie hissed and backed away in disgust. Sportacus gave an apologetic chuckle, and instead bit into it himself, realizing Robbie was not going to take it.  
  
Sportacus enthusiasm angered the demon. His breathing was a rattling hiss, and he clawed at the ground, digging up the earth beneath its sharp talons.  
  
“Are you this dumb to not realize what just happened, elf?” he hissed. “I foiled your plans with such little effort! I mocked you and your entire existence. You should be exploding with embarrassment and humility!”  
  
“Well, you're right about foiling my plan, actually.” Sportacus said behind a mouthful of apple. “But I guess all I can say is next time I'll have more luck.”  
  
“I'll find a way to keep them away from outside, again.” The monster threatened.  
  
“Is that so?” Sportacus smiled playfully. “I never shied away from a little bit of a challenge from time to time.”  
  
The beast huffed indignantly, and a cloud of dust puffed from beneath his bandaged face. “Is this just a game to you, elf?” he snarled and hovered so close their nose tips almost touched, ( if this monster even had any) “The ice you're walking on here is thin, very thin.” He raised a razor sharp talon to his neck, and drew a symbolic line over his own throat.  
  
  
“If it brightens your mood a little, I wanna call this a wager instead.” Sportacus offered. “If I can get the kids to spend more time outside by the end of the year, I will stay in this town and you will not try any further attempts to get me to leave.”  
  
The monster huffed and puffed himself up as much as he could, towering over the Álfur with ease. “And if I win, and keep the kids in their old, well known comfort zone?” he hissed.  
  
Sportacus thought for a moment. “Well, then.” Sportacus scratched his chin. “Then you are free to send me out of town. Or, well – eat me up.”  
  
The monster gave a horse snicker. “You are digging your own grave, Sportaflop. It's fall, soon winter– you will never get the kids to go outside and spend their time in the freezing snow.”  
  
But Sportacus stood his ground. “I'm sure I can.” he retaliated, and extended his hand. “So, we have a deal?”  
  
Robbie looked down at the elf's hand with an unidentifiable expression. His paw was huge, and icy cold, as it closed around Sportacus' hand.  
  
“We have a deal.” he replied, and squeezed. Hard. And Sportacus bit back a pained expression as he felt his fingerbones nearly snapping in the beast's grip.

**Author's Note:**

> ALL ART: @ Me
> 
> Some information about the cryptics:
> 
> Hidden people / Álfur - Based on the defintion of a "Brownie", a good-natured household elf, that inhabit houses and aid in tasks around the house. However, they do not like to be seen and will only work at night. 
> 
> Gargoyle - A sort of statue attached to old churches, designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building. Usually seen as guardians for churches and old cities, although they are said to be evil creatures that expell foreigners.


End file.
